


Change Sometimes

by breakingoftheshell



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Dean and music as a metaphor, Feels, Impala Feels, M/M, Music, Other, Recovery, this is how love begins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-06
Updated: 2015-10-06
Packaged: 2018-04-25 02:38:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4943485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/breakingoftheshell/pseuds/breakingoftheshell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean and Baby spin out and end up in a ditch off a snowy January interstate, leaving them to contemplate Metallica, change, and hypothermia while waiting for rescue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Change Sometimes

**Author's Note:**

> Because Impala, that's why. Set early in Season Four.

 

Dean had become uncomfortably aware that liquor _would_ freeze at the right temperature. He'd intellectually known it. He'd heard about zero degrees Kelvin and molecular motion stopping. So yeah, scientifically speaking, he knew liquor could freeze. He just hadn't ever actually thought about it before.

He thought about it now as he sat back behind the steering wheel and tipped his bottle back and forth. He held it by the neck and watched the liquid inside sort of glide back and forth like diner pancake syrup. And he was damn sure he hadn't packed along eight-year-old Kentucky syrup.

Even the bourbon was freezing. He should have dug the trunk out a long ass time ago.

"Well, shit," Dean said to the empty car.

Baby shuddered in the cold, and he patted her dash consolingly.

"Ain't your fault, Baby," he said. "I shouldn't have taken you out in this. Hell, a smarter man would have friends in Texas this time of year."

None of this was, of course, Bobby's fault. But he _was_ the only reason Dean had tried an interstate in the Dakotas in January. At night. Without Sam. It was all well and good when Bobby could dig up a 4x4 from somewhere in his crap heap. Dean's Baby wasn't equipped for this shit, even if he put snow shoes on her.

Of course, maybe he ought to have lost the lead foot. Just because the road was straight and he was surrounded by nothing for a hundred miles in any direction, as far as he could tell anyway, did not mean he couldn't get sideways and end up in the ditch.

The snow was fine, like freakin' glitter in the air, and the wind just blew it right off the road. Dean had thought they were A-OK. He made sure the defrost was on high, cracked a window to keep comfortable, cranked the AC/DC, and rolled on. The snow started to accumulate a little, on the edges of the road first, and then the wind blew it across in ribbons and streamers. Occasionally there was an exit and accompanying overpass. The sign always read some goofy name like "Endo" and said "No Services." Dean drowned out the wind with the radio but could feel it buffet the car. It whipped snow off the overpasses into sparkling curlicues and brief opaque, shimmering cloud banks that Baby cut steadily through as she and Dean forged on.It was just another drive. Maybe a little prettier, with everything sort of crystallized, and the wind making it dance...

Then, as he and Baby crested the rise of one of the bigger hills, a gust of wind hit them broadside and shoved them toward the outside shoulder of the road. Dean instinctively braked to slow and steered away from the shoulder. Baby's wheels locked up, and she started to turn cockeyed, headlights shining out onto flat nothing as her back-end gently slid out, even after Dean got back off the brake. They kept their momentum as they slipped down the hill. Dean had probably been doing 60 mph, and it was too late for any kind of slowing down now. But Baby was in no hurry to spin either. Dean tried to steer into it and regain control, but there was no traction to be found. The back end kept slowly coming around until he and Baby were going ass backward down the slope. Dean tried to steer out of the spin. Baby just kept going around. Dean let go of the steering wheel altogether and hoped they stayed on their initial trajectory so that when they finally did lose momentum, they'd still be on the road.

But leaving the wheels free to wiggle made their path unstable, and it was too late by the time Dean clamped his hands back down. Somewhere past the bottom of the hill, halfway through another lazy spin, Baby slipped off the edge of the road, down the embankment, and buried her ass, hard, in the deep, plow-packed snow in the ditch.

And here they sat.

Dean wondered if he was even getting a remotely accurate read on the fuel gauge anymore. Baby's nose was so high up, it was like she was role playing a rocket. Dean leaned back in his seat and mimicked the noise of static interference.

"Houston, we have a problem."

Baby shuddered in agreement. Dean winced and patted at her again. He hated to think what the crash had shaken loose to make her shiver like this. It would be time for some serious TLC when they got back to Bobby's.

"You're still a good girl. _My_ good girl," Dean said, setting the bourbon bottle on the floorboards where Baby dutifully pumped out heat.

He lifted his hand again and ran his fingers along the proud line of her dash.

"I'm sorry I did this to you."

Baby purred. Dean sighed and let both his hands rest over the air vents. Baby breathed warmly onto his fingers. Dean shut his eyes and held his hands to the vents until his arms got tired. Then he tucked his hands under his thighs, against the bench leather that had been warmed for hours by his own body heat.

For a while he drifted that way. He'd been on the road nearly all day. He left Sam with Bobby while he gallivanted off to recon some shit that had turned out to be nothing, which he supposed was the reason Bobby thought it was okay for him to go on his own. Money had probably been on it being nothing. Maybe Bobby had even made it up just to get Dean out of the house for a while. Dean knew he got to be a pain in the ass when he got twitchy because of too much book stuff. They all had their little tactics for dealing with each other. Bobby's tactic for dealing with Dean was usually to send him packing in some way.

Sam was different. He didn't send Dean anywhere when he was sick of him. Sam just left.

Dean's eyes popped open, and he sharply shook his head. That was quite enough of that shit.

Dean picked through his box of cassettes, looking at them as if he didn't know each and every one by heart. When he came to the Bon Jovi (a quarter impulse purchase from a flea market he and Sam had to wander through to get back to Baby once), he hesitated. Because Bon Jovi only rocked occasionally. In special situations. There was strict criteria to be met. And this wasn't exactly an anthem moment even if possible death was imminent. Dean moved on.

Metallica was always a good choice. Just tapping the tapes against each other had a soothing effect on Dean's nerves. He pulled out _Load_ after another moment's hesitation. This was the point in Metallica's discography where he usually pretended he'd stopped listening. Usually. He had the damn tape though. Never threw it away like he'd threatened to the first time he'd listened to it.

Dean put the cassette in the player. James Hetfield demanded to know where his crown was. Dean leaned his head back into the seat again.

Truth was, things always changed. People were deluding themselves if they thought Metallica wasn't right in the middle of a metamorphosis when it produced the Black album. And that shit was platinum. Everyone loved the Black album. Or they should anyway. Come on. Metallica had rocked the fuck out of their metamorphosis. But when the band was done, when it came out of the goddamn cocoon on the other side, you better fucking believe it was different.

Shit, the hair was gone. The thrash was pretty much gone. Hell, the grunge was gone. It was all chrome after that. Metallica went in some awesome funky-ass caterpillar and came out a titanium butterfly.

No one had to like it. But the freakin' truth of it was, everyone still had to just accept that everything changes. Everything.

For better or worse--who could even judge--shit was just... different.

"I'm different," Dean said aloud.

Baby didn't say anything, just hummed comfortably around him.

"Sam's different," Dean went on. "I get back from the furnace and everything's fucking different."

Baby seemed to sigh in the quiet between songs.

"Jesus, I'm sorry," Dean apologized again. "You're not different. Thank god. You're steady."

Dean reached out and ran his thumb slowly down the stitching at the edge of the center panel of the bench. There was no grit in it, not even in the crease where the back met the seat. Dean always made sure of that. He swept all of Sam's crumbs away. Blew out the dust of their travel. Dean flattened his palm against the smooth section in the middle of the seat. Thrust his hand knowingly into the give of the cushioned leather and thought about the way Baby rolled going through fast corners. Steady wasn't the right word.

"Constant," he murmured. "You're constant, Baby."

His hand moved to the steering wheel, where he ran the edge of his thumb over the ring of chrome at the center. He trailed his fingertips along one of the three spokes that angled to the outside. He let his palm ghost over the texture of the wrapping on the wheel, feeling each ridge bump against the still forming calluses on his hands. His damn hands were still rebuilding their armor after he came back. He'd come back so goddamn baby soft. He didn't even have the same driving calluses.

"I don't even _feel_ the same to you, do I?" he groaned.

" _Caught under wheel's roll_ ," Hetfield sang. " _Oh the bleeding of me!_ "

Dean let his hands fall into his lap and laughed a little. After a moment, he reached down to the floor boards where he left the bottle. Upon inspection, the bourbon appeared to have returned to a more recognizable viscosity. Dean took a long drink. The bourbon slid into his stomach like liquid ice. There was no burn. Dean let himself slip sideways and lay out on the seat. He kept one foot on the floor and propped the other against the door. He lifted his head to drink now and then.

" _I do believe!_ " he wailed with the next song.

Then he grinned and pressed his face to Baby's seat. Baby shuddered. Dean wasn't sure how to take it. Baby had never made him feel ashamed. Still, he kept his face hidden.

"God, I'm sorry," he murmured after a moment.

Nothing in Baby wavered again. Dean curled into the seat, clutching the bottle to his chest. The leather was damp from his breath and slick against his face, but he didn't move away. Baby breathed warm air against his back, like a caress. For some reason, Dean felt like weeping. Instead, he squeezed his eyes shut. Maybe he slept. He must have.

Because the next thing he heard was, " _Mama, let my heart go._ "

Instinct had him jerking straight up and slapping at the radio. "Shut up. Shut up _shut up_ ," he barked until his hand hit the power switch and plunged the car into silence. Complete silence. Utter and thorough. There was no engine noise.

"Wait," Dean said, wrapping one hand around the steering wheel. "Okay. Just..."

He pulled himself back to the driver's side, trying to keep it together. "No, just... wait. Baby."

Dean looked at the fuel gauge, where the needle sat on E. Experimentally, he bounced. He thought the needle jigged maybe a little.

"Oh, come on, Baby," Dean pleaded, reaching for the key.

He turned the engine over, bouncing as he did, working the throttle, trying to get even a sip to the engine. There was gas there. He knew there was. It just wasn't getting to the pump.

"Suck it, Baby, come on, suck it!"

But the only thing she sucked on was the battery, and that was already getting low. He watched their volts drop every time he turned the key.

"Aw, fuck!" he finally exclaimed, throwing his head back on the seat.

After a moment, he laughed. It was four in the morning. Dawn was a good three hours off. Four maybe. It never did stop snowing. Dean couldn't tell how much, but it was definitely accumulating now. He might actually just die out here. In a ditch. Cuz he wanted his '67 Impala to be, aside from all that she already was, an arctic creature.

Dean chuckled ruefully and rested his hand on the dash. The vent was still pushing out lukewarm air. That battery wasn't going to hold out much longer though. There had been no traffic to speak of, even for hours before they'd wiped out. Dean should've probably taken the hint when he'd noticed the lack of truckers on the interstate. But no. He was going to freeze to death in a blizzard in North Dakota.

Better than burning for eternity, actually.

Dean watched the dash lights fade a little more and said, "They say it's like going to sleep. Hypothermia. Haha."

Baby clicked, somehow. Some part of her electrical system valiantly tried to hold on. There was already frost creeping high up the windows in the back. Dean sighed and reached out, curling his fingers around the ignition.

"It's all right, sweetheart," he said. "Go to sleep. I'm not going anywhere."

He turned off the ignition and pulled out the key. Baby tried to lodge a protest, letting out several weak pings until Dean clicked off the headlights. Then it was dark and quiet.

"It's all right," Dean repeated, sliding down along the seat again, this time on his side facing the glove box.

He grunted in discomfort when the phone in his pocket dug into his hip. He pulled the useless thing out, not bothering to check if it had miraculously found service in the last hour. It had probably gone dead from searching. Dean threw it in the backseat.

Dean pressed his back into Baby's conditioned leather and tried to trap his heat there. It was an exercise in futility, he knew. But really, this wasn't so bad. This was pretty peaceful. It was quiet and comfortable, and he damn well had his girl. Dean laid his hand on the leather of the seat and his cheek on the back of his hand.

He hummed "Nothing Else Matters" into the cold stillness.

It took a good hour to really get cold. Dean watched his breath crystallize in the air as he drew his arms entirely inside the body of his coat. He shoved his hands in his armpits and laid back down on the bench like a slug.

The next time Dean checked the clock, he realized it had stopped. The analog dial in Baby's dash cluster had always kept time so well that Dean had to stare at it for a count of 180 seconds to be sure the hands really weren't moving. Like, maybe he'd just initially misjudged the position. Maybe he was the one getting fuzzy. But no. It stayed 5:44 for three minutes. Like there just wasn't enough energy in the world to get that minute hand horizontal on the face of the dial.

"Shit, Baby, can you even hear me anymore?" Dean asked.

He sounded slurred, even to himself, and he was sad to know it wasn't from the bourbon. He flopped back down facing the seat, unable to look at Baby's frozen console anymore.

Freezing to death wasn't at all like going to sleep, it turned out. This shit hurt. Dean's toes felt like someone was trying to plasma-cut through his steel-toed boots. The pain seared up his legs. On the other end, he felt like he had a face full of glass, burning glass, maybe melted glass, but no, it was sharp too. Shivers forced their way through Dean's body, and he hated every one of them. Each was like a twitch that opened up his armor for another sliver of cold to needle its way in. They slid into his muscles to settle down deep alongside his bones. He was rigid with the intrusion, the sensation of something foreign, wrong, wrought through his body.

It hurt bad. But Dean was no stranger to torture. He grit his teeth and lay still.

And eventually the hurt lessened. It was dulled to some version of background noise. Dean could hear how slow his heartbeat was. He could hear the leather creak whenever his shallow breathing expanded his lungs just enough to shift his arms against the seat back. He could hear the ice crystals still falling out of the sky and landing with eerie tinkles on top of each other on the roof of the car.

And then, unbelievably, Dean heard a truck.

"Ooooh," he groaned, the _you gotta be kidding me_ stuck under the weight of his frozen tongue.

Dean listened to the diesel rumble get closer, then there was a slight squeak from some tired brake shoes. A moment later, a door slammed.

Then, "Dean?"

Sam's voice, urgent and thready, the way it got when he was really freaked out but was trying to hide it. Dean wanted to laugh but just hacked into the seat once instead. He groaned again and tried to roll upright. He succeeded in pushing himself over onto his back. His limbs didn't seem to want to cooperate.

Sam was scraping his way down the embankment, making plenty of noise. He called Dean's name again, and when Dean didn't answer, another voice did, low and gravelly.

Castiel.

Dean couldn't tell what the angel was saying, but he was sure he didn't give one candy-coated crap. He had a damn angel in his corner, supposedly, and the fucker couldn't even keep his ass out of the ditch! Where was the intervention on this one? He'd had to nearly freeze to death before Cas winged over to have a look?

The warmth of Dean's anger must've given him just a little bit of energy. He unfouled his arms from one another and got them back in his coat sleeves. He was working himself back into a sitting position when Sam yanked the driver's side door open.

"Dean!" he shouted.

"Ain't Santa Claus," Dean croaked, half slumped behind the wheel.

"Oh my god, you look awful," Sam said helpfully.

Dean glowered at him.

"Are you okay?" Sam asked then winced. "I mean, is anything broken?"

"I'm fine, Sammy," Dean grated. "Heat. Need heat."

"Absolutely! Yeah!" Sam agreed and leaned in through the door.

He got his arms around Dean and pulled him out into the faint predawn light where he leaned him against Baby's side. He shut the door to get it out of their way then slung Dean's arm over his shoulders and dragged them both back up the tracks the crash had left in the snow. He marched up the bank like he wasn't carrying all of Dean's dead weight. Dean could've been a plank or a tobaggon for all the movement he was getting out of his limbs. And every jarring attempt at motion reawakened the pain that advanced hypothermia had sort of hushed away. It was excruciating. Not that Dean showed it. He proudly raised his head, as though he was doing all this under his own power.

Castiel was waiting for them up top on the shoulder of the road, in the notch of missing snowbank that Dean and Baby had taken out. His ridiculous trench coat moved just barely in the subsiding brushes of wind. Dean glared up at him, wishing his lungs weren't too raw to shout. _Bang up job, angel. Outstanding. Feel free to_ _fuck_ _right off._ The nerve of the winged dick. Just standing there, staring while they struggled out of the ditch. Everything was a goddamn spectator sport to these angel bozos, and that was the damn problem. Cas just watched them move until Sam hauled them onto level ground, then he took two steps with them toward the truck.

"Open the door, Cas," Sam said.

"Give him to me," Castiel replied.

"What?" Sam asked, single minded and still moving for the waiting flatbed. "He needs to warm up. Now, Cas."

"Sam," Castiel said.

There was something like command in the angel's tone, and while it made Dean want to snarl, Sam actually stopped. He half turned back, pivoting Dean back with him.

"Give him to me," Castiel ordered again and this time opened his hands to receive Dean.

Sam blinked and looked at Dean. Dean scowled and shook his head.

"Don't need your angel voodoo!" Dean proclaimed. Except it sounded more like, "Doaneeaan'lvoo'oo."

Although it wasn't nearly as windy as before, leaving Baby's shelter stripped Dean of the last protection he had. His lips were useless. His fingers were gone. He felt like he had stumps. He was a stump. And Sam was Paul Bunyan, the big dopey lumberjack. Dean tried to growl in dismay, but it was more of a wheeze. Sam made a face and shook his head before pushing Dean forward, into Castiel's arms.

Dean managed a squawk of protest. Castiel seemed to willfully misinterpret him.

He caught Dean, strong hands on his shoulders, and said, "I've got you."

Dean shivered under his hands, not entirely from the cold.

But the cold was there, and it was a pressing issue. It was still gnawing and gnawing, and Dean had caught a glimpse of salvation through the window in the cab of that truck. There were lights on in there, and the windows were fogged at the edges from how damn warm he just knew it was. And yet, the angel was still making him wait. Always making him wait.

Dean groaned in pain and frustration.

Castiel's brow pinched, just a little more than it usually did, and then he pulled Dean into his chest. Dean fell against him like a board, like the goddamn popsicle he was, and grunted at the crack of Castiel's collarbone against his own. Neither of them were dressed for this weather, and Castiel placed a hand against the bare skin at the back of Dean's neck, sliding it just under the collar of Dean's black coat.

Castiel's hand was warm, and Dean squeezed his eyes shut, because he knew this was going to hurt. And it did. The heat was like fire on his frozen nerves, like voltage searing through his body or magma pouring through forgotten veins in his stone limbs. He cried out with it, felt himself clench, again like there was an intrusion his body didn't understand. In that moment, he could have been a lightning rod--rigid and burning. But as suddenly as it started, it was over. The pain stopped, there was only tingling warmth left behind, and Dean collapsed. He melted into Castiel as though he'd gone from solid to liquid. The angel had caused him to change states. 

Castiel wrapped his free arm around Dean's back to keep him from puddling on the road.

The relief... the relief was almost painful. It was so warm and so light. Dean took several quick breaths, too quick,edging toward panic, because it was too easy, because it didn't hurt. Dean didn't know how not to struggle. He didn't know how to live without it. His body was so content that it didn't seem capable of moving, and Dean didn't understand. All his strength came from his need to fight. This kind of comfort didn't exist. It couldn't. Not after everything he'd been through.

"What took you so long?" he asked, voice a low whine against Castiel's ear.

Castiel said nothing. Dean's face felt wet, and he realized there were tears.

"I held out," Dean choked.

Right to the very edge. He'd tried to be strong. He'd waited for an angel without even thinking about it. He'd waited for an angel without even knowing about it. He'd waited forty years for an angel. But they were way, way too late. Always too late. Too late to stop the hurt. Too late to keep him from seeing himself shattered.

Dean shut his eyes against memories he was still desperately trying not to have. Hell was a taste on the back of his tongue--a feeling under his fingernails that he couldn't scrape out no matter how hard he tried. He'd held out for as long as he could, but Castiel didn't come for forty years...

"Dean," Castiel murmured.

His hand tightened a little on the back of Dean's neck, as if to make him secure. Dean wondered if he could have held out longer if he had known this was what was coming to him. But really, what did it matter? Giving in was giving in. He wasn't supposed to do it whether there was something for him at the end of the marathon or not.

Dean re-forged armor of his own self-loathing and shielded himself behind it. It was a well-practiced skill--had been, even before. Dean was quick with it.

"What took you so long?" he asked again, voice clearer.

He pulled his head back, and Castiel allowed it, but his hand remained in place on the back of Dean's neck, warmth emanating so that Dean couldn't really notice the still subzero weather around them. Castiel tilted his head and narrowed his eyes.

"I needed to get Sam and a truck," he said finally.

"Dude, you're an angel," Dean said. "It's not like you needed a lift."

Castiel frowned and lowered his eyes. After a moment, he shook his head. "I knew you wouldn't leave her."

Dean lifted his eyes, gazing over Castiel's shoulder down into the ditch where Baby rested, looking forlornly up at him. She wore a coat of white, and the way she'd landed tilted up toward the road made her round lights, dark as they were, look like pleading eyes. She was looking right into him.

Dean swallowed and drew his gaze back to Castiel. The angel looked up. His eyes seemed contrite, equal parts sad and hopeful, blue as the ocean, and a thousand times more beautiful. There were snowflakes in his eyelashes. And Dean _knew_ this was just the _girliest shit he'd ever thought._

He cleared his throat and said, "So you brought the truck for Baby."

Castiel gazed at Dean searchingly for several long moments. Then he said, "For _you_ for Baby."

Dean didn't know what to say. Castiel didn't seem to mind. His expression was the softest Dean had ever seen it. He wasn't smiling. Dean didn't think he knew how. But there was something more rounded and gentle about his mouth. There was something in his eyes that was reinforced by another squeeze from his warm hand. 

"It's okay that she makes you happy, Dean," the angel said. "You need that."

Some part of Dean wanted to protest, but the rest of him could never deny Baby in any way. Because he damn well did need her. She was home. Castiel seemed to understand. He nodded and finally loosened his hold, slowly letting go and making sure Dean could support his own weight. They stepped away from each other at the same time, and just as they parted, Dean thought he felt lips brush against his jaw. Warm and dry and chaste and still somehow heart-stopping. Trying to stay on track, Dean turned to Sam, shaking out his limbs as the cold re-enveloped him. Sam was in the cab of the truck, staring out the window at them with one eyebrow raised.

Dean rolled his eyes and jerked his shoulder as he headed around the back of the flatbed where Castiel was staring at the winch as if willing it to move with his angel mojo. Sam maneuvered the truck into a better position. And Dean felt like this was all okay. Because they would get his Baby out of the ditch. And maybe not all angels were so bad. And sometimes change was a good thing.

**Author's Note:**

> So, once again, I just had some feels, I guess. And I didn't know what to do with them, so I started writing about Dean and Baby. And then I was like, "Well, now what?" So I threw in some Castiel at the end. Because they're just so...
> 
> Anyway. I'm not entirely sure the Impala dings when you leave the headlights on... Or whether the fuel pump is in the front or rear of the gas tank, but the front seemed like a good guess. Or where EXACTLY this fits in the timeline. Ha. The rest should be pretty accurate...


End file.
